Calibre settings (migrating from Kobo to Kindle Paperwhite)

[melovesflying]

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this but I've decided to transfer from Kobo to a Kindle after being very dissatisfied with my Glo HD.

I've installed Kobo Utilities and plugboards on Calibre so that took care of all the metadata, covers, and series names/number, etc. on my Kobo devices.

I want to do the same thing on my soon to arrive Paperwhite and I have no idea what to do. Basically, my concern is for my books on my Paperwhite to be complete with covers and the series names, and I don't know if I need to install a plugin for that (like a Kindle equivalent of Kobo Utilities plugin) or if the plugboard tutorial I found will take care of series numbering and simply transferring via cable from Calibre to Paperwhite will also transfer the book covers.

With Kobo, I connect the device, transfer the books, eject, and reconnect to finally transfer the metadata and the covers.

Also, is there a way to mark books as 'read', 'reading', or 'unread' in Calibre and then sync it to the Paperwhite so that when I finally transfer my books to the device, I don't have to manually mark the reading status of books individually?

Thanks!

[theducks]

Yes, you need to set up a Plugboard for Series info
Remember, these can be made Format Sensitive (not All) if needed

There is also a PI for making Kindle Collections from Calibre metadata

I believe these only work if you side load (that is all I do with my K4)

[melovesflying]

Yup I'm also sideloading all my books. What plugin are you referring to for the Kindle Collections?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by melovesflying

Yup I'm also sideloading all my books. What plugin are you referring to for the Kindle Collections?

The one with that name

Preferences(menu): Get Plugins: Kindle Collections

[melovesflying]

Oh I see. Do I need to jailbreak my device for that?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by melovesflying

Oh I see. Do I need to jailbreak my device for that?

I have no idea.

The PI is a Calibre PI

There is a MR Calibre Plugins thread describing it and user questions

BTW I read that new Kindles are hard (impossible?) to Jailbreak

You might want to spend time looking at thread subject lines in the Kindles forum

[eschwartz]

The Paperwhite -- and all touchscreen Kindles -- needs to be jailbroken. See the relevant stickies in our Kindle Developers Corner.
A newly-purchased Kindle stands a good chance of not shipping with firmware 5.7.x so keep the WiFi OFF until you have a chance to jailbreak.

...

The Collections plugin is pretty handy and works for all books not just the sideloaded ones.

...

The Kindle has no concept of series #, but I use a plugboard to insert it into the title instead, which works as well for me:

{title}{#subseries:| (|, }{#subseries_index:|Book |)}{series:| (|, }{series_index:|Book |)}

...

No syncing the read status unfortunately. Like most things, the Kindle stores that info in the hidden system partition.

[melovesflying]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

The Paperwhite -- and all touchscreen Kindles -- needs to be jailbroken. See the relevant stickies in our Kindle Developers Corner.
A newly-purchased Kindle stands a good chance of not shipping with firmware 5.7.x so keep the WiFi OFF until you have a chance to jailbreak.

...

The Collections plugin is pretty handy and works for all books not just the sideloaded ones.

...

The Kindle has no concept of series #, but I use a plugboard to insert it into the title instead, which works as well for me:

{title}{#subseries:| (|, }{#subseries_index:|Book |)}{series:| (|, }{series_index:|Book |)}

...

No syncing the read status unfortunately. Like most things, the Kindle stores that info in the hidden system partition.

So I have to jailbreak it immediately out of the box? Also, how is Kindle Collections different from just merely making a plugboard to include series numbers in books?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by melovesflying

So I have to jailbreak it immediately out of the box? Also, how is Kindle Collections different from just merely making a plugboard to include series numbers in books?

These are really getting to be Kindle forum questions

Plugboard just forces data into Kindle recognized fields

A Collection is book GROUPING (menu tool) that Kindles have .
This is NOT part of the book

The PI mumbles data into that area of the device.

A common usage is Series , but it can be anything. To read, MyFavs

[melovesflying]

@theducks sorry about that but thank you for the help.